Media Bias [Merged]

[OldSolduer]

I know the feeling and really have to bite my tongue when I go to the movies.

Same here.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>Is it all ranks or just officers?

All are subject to the same qualifying conditions for a "profession".  And "engineers" (as in "PE") belong in the list.

 

[a_majoor]

More on the future of the CBC. It seems their management really has no clue at all of how to work in the new media environment, and the CBC may end up as some sort of subsidized "Disneyland" for media students and reenactors to see how media operated in the 20th century....

http://arts.nationalpost.com/2014/03/20/to-survive-life-after-hockey-the-cbc-must-change-if-it-can/

To survive life after hockey, the CBC must change — if it can

Scott Stinson | March 20, 2014 | Last Updated: Mar 20 5:04 PM ET
More from Scott Stinson | @scott_stinson

When Rogers Media in November scooped up all NHL broadcast rights for a dozen years, blowing up the pillars of the CBC’s television schedule in the process, it fell to Hubert Lacroix, the president of the public broadcaster, to survey the smoking crater and pronounce the new view to be not so bad.

Lacroix gamely offered that although the CBC was losing the revenue from Hockey Night in Canada, it also wouldn’t have to cut a “big cheque” to the NHL any longer.

But wasn’t Hockey Night profitable?, I asked Lacroix.

“Absolutely,” he said.

And weren’t those profits re-invested in other CBC programming?

They were, he said. But that was the old model. This was the new model: no NHL costs and no NHL revenue, and with the CBC still showing hockey on Saturday nights, but with Rogers owning the content.

The public broadcaster has cancelled its northern drama Arctic Air and mental health crime series Cracked — the latest to fall off the schedule after recent announcements about the impending end of George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight and The Ron James Show.

The cuts follow CBC’s loss of lucrative NHL broadcast rights to Rogers. Hockey revenue has traditionally subsidized scripted programs and provided a high-profile platform to promote homegrown fare.

I will admit that at this point I was struggling to see the silver lining. Then Lacroix said something that explained everything: “This was the only way for us to continue.”

Things have become clearer still in the months since the Rogers-NHL deal was announced. It is apparent that when Rogers swooped in, CBC executives discovered that it could either agree to loan its airwaves to a private media conglomerate, or it would have to find some other way to fill 300 hours of content. They opted for the former choice, not that they much time to think about it. And, contrary to his glass-half-full take in the fall, Lacroix has since informed CBC staff that the broadcaster is facing significant revenue challenges.

Now, the other shoes are dropping all over the place. George Stroumboulopoulos, one of the CBC’s biggest names, had his 10-season talk show cancelled last week, though he found a hell of a life raft as the new host of Rogers’ Hockey Night on CBC, or whatever it will be called. In recent days, The Ron James Show, a long-running sketch comedy program, was cancelled, and two of CBC’s prime-time dramas, Cracked and Arctic Air, were dropped after two and three seasons, respectively. The latter moves were spun as a move away from the procedural dramas already produced (and imported) in droves by the country’s private broadcasters, to which I say: We shall see.

Why not use the loss of NHL hockey as the spark to admit that the CBC model no longer works?
.
Is the CBC, with a new team of executives in charge of programming for the last several months, about to embark on a fundamental overhaul of its lineup? Will it stop chasing eyeballs with shows geared toward a broad audience — which is what the private networks are doing already — and try instead to make the kinds of shows that CTV, Global and City aren’t making? This space, for one, would welcome a pivot toward a rebirth as AMC North. (Recognizing that such a thing couldn’t happen overnight, existing shows such as Murdoch Mysteries, Republic of Doyle and Mr. D could stick around for the transition. Murdoch still gets strong ratings, Mr. D’s shortened third season is so far its best yet, and Jake Doyle could start swearing and kill someone with his bare hands.)

But if there is an appetite among its leaders for a repurposing of the CBC, so far the evidence for it is thin. It announced this week that it is bringing back Dragons’ Den, despite the loss of Bruce Croxon and Kevin O’Leary, the show’s Simon Cowell. That’s great news for the six Canadians who still haven’t had a chance to pitch their inventions to the Dragons yet. Meanwhile, all the rest of its vast operations keep chugging along, in many cases competing directly with private media outlets, and at no small cost to the taxpayer.

We’ve said this before, but it bears repeating given recent events: Why not use the loss of NHL hockey as the spark to admit that the CBC model, which requires it to fulfill a public-service mandate while still pursuing commercial advertising dollars, no longer works? If it made sense before, and that’s questionable, it sure doesn’t now that it lost its best vehicle for advertising revenue.

Someone at the CBC leadership needs to point this out, though. Failing that, such a change could come from the corporation’s political masters at the Department of Canadian Heritage, but so far from those corners it’s just crickets. Alternatively, the opposition politicians who are always so quick to jump up and say that the public broadcaster is a vital resource that must be properly funded could perhaps take note that it suffered a huge loss in November and suggest the government do something about it. A stable, multi-year funding envelope? A switch to pay cable? A withdrawal from areas in which CBC’s services are already covered by private media?

Big changes would make more sense than the death by a thousand cuts that the broadcaster presently seems to be suffering. But instead, the post-Hockey Night CBC, and the government, are both following the path of least resistance.

The CBC was already irreparably changed when it lost hockey. So change, already.

 

[The_Falcon]

A Major posted to Halifax is suing the gov't over denied moving expense claim.  Not to say that didn't happen or he isn't entitled but the sensationalism ,having to pick bottles and sell furniture, as a Major which START at $100k for a salary........yeah...something isn't adding up here.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/canadian-forces-major-sues-feds-over-moving-bill-1.2603391

A Canadian Forces major is taking the federal government to court next week in Halifax for what he says is its refusal to follow its own policy on military family relocation.

Maj. Marcus Brauer has spent the last four years battling the federal government. He moved with his family in May 2010 after he was transferred from Edmonton to CFB Halifax.

He said the relocation has brought his family close to financial ruin.

Marcus Brauer house
Major Marcus Brauer lost $73,000 in his relocation from Bon Accord, Atla. to Halifax. (CBC)

Brauer sold his home in Bon Accord, a small town north of Edmonton, for $317,000, losing $88,000 on the sale when the real estate market dropped.

He thought his family would be fully reimbursed since the Treasury Board has a policy to compensate soldiers if the real estate market drops more than 20 per cent.

But in July 2012 the Treasury Board told him he would get just $15,000.

“Absolute fury. I couldn't believe that they would take that money away from people after it's been promised,” said Brauer.

He now carries $73,000 of debt and has resorted to selling furniture and picking bottles. He is also crowdsourcing to raise $20,000 for his legal fees.

The case is being heard next week.

According to court documents, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat considers Bon Accord part of the larger metropolitan Edmonton area which did not see the same type of real estate collapse. It said that's why Brauer is not entitled to the money.

“There's going to be two things that are going to happen,” said Brauer. “We're going to win this case or we're going to be declaring bankruptcy.”

 

[dapaterson]

See http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/95326.0

 

[The_Falcon]

See http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/95326.0

I guess this particular update on the story belong here IMO (unless my fellow mods feel otherwise), given the sensational comments attributed in the article  "He now carries $73,000 of debt and has resorted to selling furniture and picking bottles".  I have a hard time believing this isn't hyperbole.

 

[Edward Campbell]

It isn't just readers/listeners/viewers or peole of a conservative bent who complain about journalistic bias. In this video clip NDP leaders Thomas Mulcair rips into CTV's Laurie Graham over the current NDP 'satelliet office' affair - which may or may not be a breach of the rules.

 

[Kat Stevens]

It isn't just readers/listeners/viewers or peole of a conservative bent who complain about journalistic bias. In this video clip NDP leaders Thomas Mulcair rips into CTV's Laurie Graham over the current NDP 'satelliet office' affair - which may or may not be a breach of the rules.

No fan of the NDP, but way to go Tom for the broadside.  It would have been nice to have a camera on her too, hehe.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I am assuming (or is it just the triumph of hope over experience?) that most (many? some? at least a couple of?) members of Unifor Local 87-M, "historically known as the Southern Ontario Newsmedia Guild" will denounce their union leadership and demand decertification for this message ...  :dunno:

 

[a_majoor]

Considering that I hear at least 3 union or union front ads for every single political party ad, this really is no surprise. If the workers are able to raise the issue or attempt to get decertification, they will probably have to jump through even more hoops of fire than the PCPO would need to get a majority government.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Those who love to hate the CBC may find this graphic, produced by the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting a very, very pro-CBC lobby group, interesting:

It shows, pretty clearly, using values that have been adjusted for inflation, that Prime Minister Harper's cuts to the CBC have been far less drastic than were Prime Minister Chrétien's.

I well recall the 1995-1999 period: Messers Chrétien and Martin were cutting DND even more drastically than they were cutting the CBC, as is Prime Minister Harper, I think.

I happen to agree with the CBC's management: the existing model of broadcasting doesn't work ... not in Canada and not in Europe and not even in the USA. I don't know what the right answer is ...*

_____
* And I don't say that very often. 

 

[Edward Campbell]

At the risk of derailing this thread ... 

This article, which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, indicates what is wrong, in my opinion, with most "thinking" (I'm using that term loosely) about broadcasting, specifically public broadcasting and, indeed, journalism:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/the-cbcs-a-service-not-a-business/article19354362/#dashboard/follows/

The CBC’s a service, not a business

WADE ROWLAND
Contributed to The Globe and Mail

Published Thursday, Jun. 26 2014

Wade Rowland is the author of Saving the CBC: Balancing Profit and Public Interest. He teaches in York University’s communication studies department.

The CBC’s strategic plan to shift priorities from broadcast to digital services and outsource virtually all but news and current affairs programming is, on the whole, a sensible strategy – from a purely business perspective. It saves money by reducing production and distribution costs. Shedding more jobs will further enhance the bottom line between now and 2020; as many as 1,500 positions will be eliminated in the plan announced Wednesday.

The thing is, however, that the public broadcaster is not a business in any conventional sense. It exists not to make money or to satisfy financial goals, but to fill a public need – one that is not being served by private media outlets. The CBC is a public good, like the school system, like medicare, like our universities and colleges, our public museums and galleries.

In a world of commercial sponsorship of media, both broadcast and online, the CBC’s purpose is to serve its audiences as citizens, rather than as consumers. Its purpose is to create news, information and entertainment that’s judged for its creative, intellectual and artistic integrity, rather than its ability to attract large audiences that can be sold to advertisers.

What CBC management has delivered is not a public broadcasting strategy but a business plan, one that further distances the corporation from its public-service mandate.

For example, most people who study digital online media recognize that one of its impacts is to atomize audiences. Where traditional broadcasting creates a kind of congregation, a community of interest, the fragmented, specialized nature of Internet content tends to encourage individuals to focus on their own established interests. There is certainly a place for this, but it runs counter to the community-building remit of public broadcasting.

Another example: Nowhere in Wednesday’s in-house town-hall webcast, nor the accompanying documentation, was the issue of whether the public broadcaster ought to be carrying advertising even mentioned. The best of the world’s public-service broadcasters (PSBs) carry no commercials. Their involvement means engaging in the ratings game, which pushes programming toward the lowest common denominator in tastes and interests. This is why commercial-free subscription television services such as HBO and Netflix, like true PSBs, tend to produce superior programming.

One of the reasons why CBC is anxious to accelerate its shift to online services is because that’s where advertising revenue is moving. It hopes to cash in on the bonanza. But a reliance on ad revenue from online services is just as corrosive to PSB values and goals as it is in conventional TV and radio, for the same reasons.

If 70-odd years experience with the CBC to date proves anything, it’s that the public broadcaster can’t serve two masters. It should leave commercial sponsorship to the private media, which exist to serve advertisers, and it should focus on its public-service mandate exclusively.

Can the CBC survive without advertising revenue? That’s like asking whether the public school system can survive without corporate sponsorship. Of course it can – as long as that’s a public priority, as it ought to be.

At present, the CBC receives an annual parliamentary appropriation of about $1.34-billion. This puts Canada third from the bottom of the list of OECD nations’ support for their PSBs. A subsidy of $3-billion would boost us to around average. That level of funding would make it possible for the CBC to produce television programming matching the highest international standards, and to continue to finance an exceptional radio service while providing online services as the market – rather than internal balance sheets – dictates.

A dedicated 5 per cent to 7 per cent impost on what the CRTC calls Broadcast Distribution Undertakings – the big, vertically integrated and enormously profitable Internet/wireless/telephone/broadcast providers like Bell, Rogers, Shaw, Quebecor – could bring CBC funding up to a level that would allow it to properly do its job of providing an alternative to commercial media.

It could put the CBC back in the business of being an authentic public-service broadcaster, beholden to no vested interests, commercial or political. It’s what the country needs and deserves as a culture and a community – more so than ever in the evolving digital era.

Prof Rowland relies upon variations of the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Act which have been enunciated since 1932. The current version, the Broadcasting Act (S.C. 1991, c. 11), says that "the Canadian broadcasting system, operating primarily in the English and French languages and comprising public, private and community elements, makes use of radio frequencies that are public property and provides, through its programming, a public service essential to the maintenance and enhancement of national identity and cultural sovereignty." That's the "public need" which Prof Rowland says the CBC is uniquely mandated to satisfy. Clearly the CBC is not the only player in the game; the Act specifically says that "private and community elements" also have roles; it does not assign a primary role to public broadcasting.

My next issue is that Prof Rowland says that PBS, in the USA, is "the best of the world’s public-service broadcasters." I have no idea on what criteria his assessment rests but he has, very, very clearly, forgotten e.g. CCTV in China which serves about 1 Billion viewers using 45 "over the air" channels plus cable and internet based channels serving a global audience or MediaCorp in Singapore. PBS is a good, albeit expensive, public broadcasting service, but it relies heavily upon foreign, especially BBC, programming. Tiny Singapore (a nation-state with about Toronto's population) manages to, nearly, fill one TV channel with homegrown, popular (people actually watch it) entertainment and information. CCTV, for its part, produces vast amounts of programming, in several languages, for domestic and foreign consumption ~ some is, very clearly, crude, Communist Party propaganda, much of it is entertainment with a nationalist message and there are, also, large news and children's/education divisions. Some (a lot) of the education, documentary, news and education programmes have very high production values.

This brings me to journalism. If there is a mandate to "serve the needs and interests, and reflect the circumstances and aspirations, of Canadian men, women and children, including equal rights, the linguistic duality and multicultural and multiracial nature of Canadian society and the special place of aboriginal peoples within that society" (Broadcasting Act (S.C. 1991, c. 11, §3.d.iii) then, ipso facto the whole broadcasting system, not just the CBC, is required to be a propaganda arm of government. Is that what Prof Rowland really wants? If yes, then we had better look long and hard at CCTV to see how to do it right. If not then we need to look at e.g. Hong Kong, which does have one government owned "news agency" which is what, I suspet Hubert Lacroix has in mind for the CBC.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Just a small point ERC,

Prof. Rowland does not refer to PBS (Public Broadcasting System) in the USA, he refers to P S B, the public services's broadcasters, a category that includes all of the various types of public broadcasters, including CBC, PBS, BBC etc.

It does not detract from the point you are making but eviscerates the examples you use.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Just a small point ERC,

Prof. Rowland does not refer to PBS (Public Broadcasting System) in the USA, he refers to P S B, the public services's broadcasters, a category that includes all of the various types of public broadcasters, including CBC, PBS, BBC etc.

It does not detract from the point you are making but eviscerates the examples you use.

Thanks, OGBD, I missed that - I'm going to plead tired old eyes in my defence - but I think that MediaCorp, most likely, and CCTV, certainly, would self identify as PSBs, so I think my use of them as examples of public service broadcasters stands.

 

[a_majoor]

The CBC and most other media is still caught in an obsolete business model. Journalism and entertainment are services, as noted, and people are willing to pay for a service that they want or need. The idea of broadcasting to everyone indiscriminately made sense in the 1930's, when broadcast technology was primitive and expensive, and very few systems actually existed. (For fans of The Clash, the line "London calling from the top of the dial" comes from that time. My family used to have a radio which was set up that way, instead of stations and frequencies the dial actually had London, Paris, Berlin etc. marked on it, since there was only one national station broadcasting on that frequency).

Today, of course, you can dip your cup into a raging torrent of content through Internet services like Netflix, ROKU, Songza, YouTube and dozens of others. You can select what you like, and indeed pay for it a la carte. It is annoying that with cable or broadcast media, you end up either paying for stuff you don't want (cable bundles) or having ads forced on you to support whatever content you do want (but also supporting content you care nothing about).

CBC, if it survives at all, will be one of millions or even billions of specialty "channels" on a YouTube like service. IF they are smart, they will try to identify a target audience that is willing to pay for their nuggets of wisdom so they can make the transition. Otherwise, they will simply vanish into the background noise. Considering their dismal viewership (despite the advantage of billions of dollars of subsidies), I think vanishing into the background is probably going to be their fate. Any service provider who does not identify and satisfy their audience will suffer a similar fate.

 

[Occam]

:facepalm:

 

[CombatDoc]

If those are CF-18s per CBC, I foresee a name change on this forum:  Supersonic Max --> Subsonic Max.  ;D

 

[Tibbson]

The new F/A 18 G perhaps?  Or maybe these are the F35, stripped down bare bones version.

I did notice that on their second pass the commentator made sure she got it right?

 

[a_majoor]

You were watching the CBC?

 

[PPCLI Guy]

You were watching the CBC?